[This is the first section of the conclusion to Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

When George W. Bush became the Republican Governor of Texas, “he arrived indebted to dozens of industries and wealthy patrons” and “repaid some of his supporters with choice political appointments,” according to the Center for Public Integrity’s The Buying of the President 2000.
The same book indicated what the political situation was like in Texas state politics in 2000 -- before Texas’s governor moved into the White House in 2001 after receiving fewer popular votes than the Democratic Party candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election:

One of the most prestigious political appointments is a seat on the University of Texas board of Regents. The board is filled with Bush’s top-dollar donors. The chair of the UT Regents is Donald Evans, Bush’s old friend and longtime fund-raiser who, as the finance chairman for Bush’s presidential bid, has overseen the campaign’s record-shattering fund-raising drive. Evans is the chief executive officer of Tom Brown, Inc., an oil and gas company based in Midland, Texas .

In 1989, Bush joined the board as an outside director. He received $12,000 a year plus stock options for attending several meetings and participating in conference calls... Shortly after he was elected governor of Texas, Bush sold his Tom Brown holdings for a profit of $297,550.

Another regent and top Bush patron is A.R. `Tony’ Sanchez, the chairman and chief executive of Sanchez-O’Brien Oil and Gas Corporation... Sanchez and his mother also own a controlling stake in International Bancshares Corporation, the holding company of International Bank of Commerce, a Texas banking chain founded by his father in 1966. Over [George W.] Bush’s career, Sanchez, members of his family, and employees of his companies have given him at least $230,150, making them his No. 2 career patron…

Bush owed few people more than Richard Rainwater, the Fort Worth financier... Rainwater launched an investment company in 1994, Crescent Real Estate Equities Company... In 1997, Bush backed a plan to cut state property taxes that would have saved Crescent some $2.5 million in state taxes... Later that year,...Bush signed a bill into law that produced a $10 million windfall for Crescent... Dallas taxpayers were to foot most of the bill for the new sports arena…Rainwater, through Crescent, bought a 12 percent stake in the Mavericks. Under the purchase agreement, Crescent will get $10 million when the arena is completed…

The Texas Teachers’ Retirement System...sold two office buildings and a mortgage on a third to Crescent in 1996 and 1997 at a $70.4 million loss... At the time of at least one of the sales, Bush owned about $100,000 worth of Crescent stock... The University of Texas Investment Management Company [UTIMCO]...has steered close to $1.7 billion of its assets into private investments; a third of that money has gone into funds run either by...[UTIMCO Chairman Hicks]’s business partner or by Bush patrons...

Industries that have provided the bulk of Bush’s campaign contributions have gotten his help in a variety of endeavors, from staving off pesky environmental regulations and shielding themselves from consumer lawsuits to driving off meddlesome investigators... According to a study by Public Research Works, Bush raised $566,000 from...polluters for his two gubernatorial campaigns. And from March 4, 1999 to March 31, 1999 Bush raised $316,300... They included: Enron ( Bush’s No. 1 career patron); Vinson & Elkins (Bush’s No. 3 career patron), a law firm that represents Enron and Alcoa, a...polluter; and companies owned by the Bass family (Bush’s No. 5 career patron).

And, coincidentally, some of the same ultra-rich folks who bankrolled former Texas governor Bush’s campaigns in the 1990s have apparently been donating a lot of money in the 21st-century to fund the campaigns of the current governor of Texas, former 2012 GOP presidential primaries candidate Rick Perry.

Between 2001 and Oct. 23, 2010, for example, Perry (a former U.S. Air Force officer who is the son of former Haskell County Commissioner Ray Perry) received $337,027 in campaign contributions from Lee Bass, $100,000 in campaign contributions from Sid Bas, and 265,000 in campaign contributions from Ray Hunt, according to the Texans for Public Justice website.

The same website also recalled that “as Texas' longest-serving governor, Rick Perry raised $98.9 million from 2001 through Oct. 23, 2010,” and that “Perry raised almost $49 million (or 50 percent of this money) from 193 mega donors who gave him $100,000 or more.”

Between 1990 and 2000, the number of people who lived in Austin increased from 465,622 to 656,562; and the number of people who lived in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area increased from 846,227 to 1,249,763 during the same period.

According to the “Forty Acres and a Shul: `It’s Easy as Dell’” essay by Cathy Schechter that appeared in Lone Stars of David: the Jews of Texas, between 1990 and 2000, Austin ’s Jewish-affiliated population also increased from 5,000 “to more than 10,000," and “by 2002, the American Jewish Yearbook estimated the city’s Jewish population at 13,500.”

But “the appearance of young `Dellionaire’ Jews who made millions in the brave new world of high-technology took the mellow Austin Jewish community by surprise.” Yet by 2007, Texas billionaire Michael Dell -- with an estimated personal wealth that year of $17.2 billion -- was the wealthiest ultra-rich person in Texas .

But in 2007 Robert Bass was still worth $5.5 billion, Ray Hunt was worth $4 billion, Sid and Lee Bass were worth $3 billion, and Ed Bass was worth $2.5 billion, according to Bryan Burrough's The Big Rich. The same book also noted that in 2007, coincidentally, “Hunt Oil received a lucrative concession to drill in northern Iraq,” and “Sid Bass, whose family, along with the Hunts, ranked among Bush’s largest financial backers, was photographed alongside the president, Laura Bush, and the queen of England...”

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

Onward Through the Blog

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BOOKS / Alan Wieder : Paul Buhle's 'Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith' by Alan Wieder / The Rag Blog. Noted historian Paul Buhle, who has published an acclaimed series of nonfiction comics, is one of the most prolific and insightful critics from the American left. "Radical Jesus," which communicates the social message of Jesus Christ in comic format, investigates the inequalities that exist in the world through a theological lens.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Israel, Hillel, and Idolatry by Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog. Hillel International, the "home" for many Jewish college students of diverse backgrounds and beliefs, has been beset with controversy about when uncritical support among American Jews for Israel becomes "idolatry of the State."

Paul Krassner : Is There a Doctor in the House? by Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog. The Coachella Valley in Southern California hosted a massive four-day health clinic that helped more than 2,500 uninsured patients. Krassner points out that California leads the nation in people without health insurance and says that "the insurance industry has a preexisting condition known in technical terminology as greed."

Kate Braun : Winter Solstice Falls on Saturn's Day by Kate Braun / The Rag Blog. Our celebrations during the Winter Solstice take from many traditions, including the Roman Saturnalia, Druid customs, the German "Yule," and the birth of Jesus; and it was Queen Victoria who popularized the lighted Christmas tree.

Allen Young : Ralph Dungan, the 'Good Liberal' by Allen Young / The Rag Blog. A recent obituary of Ralph Dungan, one of President John F. Kennedy's top aides who later served as ambassador to Chile, reminds Allen of a revealing experience he had with the man referred to by a historian as a "good liberal."

Ed Felien : A Good [Angry White] Man With a Gun by Ed Felien / The Rag Blog. Paul Anthony Ciancia considered himself a "good man with a gun" -- a warrior against the traitors who were taking over our government, bankrupting our currency, and trying to establish a New World Order -- when he walked into the Los Angeles airport and opened fire with an assault rifle.

Lamar W. Hankins : Right-Wing Rants and the Abominable Straw Man by Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog. The Internet is a marvelous tool when used honestly and correctly, and with recognition of its limitations. But it is also home to angry rants, often from the far right, that make ridiculous claims -- like the one (that actually originated on a satirical site) saying that the Obama administration was setting up gasoline stations to provide free gas to low-income [read: black] people.

Harry Targ : My Nelson Mandela by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. An irony of 21st century historical discourse is how real historic figures -- like the late Nelson Mandela -- get lionized, sanitized, and redefined as defenders of the ongoing order rather than activists who committed their lives to revolutionary change.

Michael James : Back to Uptown, 1965-1966 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues his remarkable memoir, accompanied -- and inspired by -- photos from his upcoming book. His adventures -- and the making of an activist -- continue as he heads back to Uptown Chicago, "progressing along my path with another left turn and a big step into America."

Alice Embree : Chile and the Politics of Memory by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Chileans went to the polls Sunday and appear to be reelecting Socialist president Michelle Bachelet on the 40th anniversary of the bloody U.S.-supported coup against Socialist president Salvador Allende. Alice writes about the dramatic contradictions in Chilean politics and history.

Paul Krassner : A Tale of Two Alternative Media Conferences by Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog. Paul remembers the original Alternative Media Conference in June 1970 at Goddard College in Vermont -- and it was a wild and wooly affair headlined by the likes of Ram Dass, Harvey Kurtzman, and Art Spiegelman -- as the college hosts another conference keynoted by progressive radio host Thom Hartmann.

Harry Targ : STEM and the Tyranny of the Meme by Harry Targ / The Rag Blog. From the fear of "falling behind the Soviets" to the missile gap and, more recently the wars on drugs and terrorism, the fear of falling behind some fictional adversaries is an ongoing "meme" used by economic, political, and military elites. The latest? Now it's the "STEM crisis" and the fear that we're falling behind other nations in science and technology .

Alice Embree : Anne Lewis' New Website Brings Austin Movement History to Life by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog. Noted documentary filmmaker Anne Lewis has created a website called Austin Beloved Community that uses audio, film, photos, maps, and personal recollections to create a "digital collage" about the struggle for social and economic justice in Austin from the 1880s to the present. Alice interviews Lewis about the unique project.

BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Marc Myers Tells Us 'Why Jazz Happened' by Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog. Ron reviews a new book on America's own music in which Marc Myers "provides the reader with a deep, rich, and broad perspective on the confluence of jazz and U.S. history in the decades following World War Two."

David McReynolds : We Are All Wounded Veterans by David McReynolds / The Rag Blog. Long-time pacifist writer and activist McReynolds says there's something "infinitely sad" about the recent celebration of Veterans Day. "In the bad wars -- which are the only wars we have fought for some time now -- there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy," he says.

Michael James : Going Off Campus, 1965 by Michael James / The Rag Blog. Mike continues to share experiences and images from his rich history as an activist and adventurer -- that will be published in an upcoming book, "Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul." Here Mike reports on the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, community organizing in Oakland, and his travels across the country in a 1957 Plymouth station wagon "drive-away."